Last week (July 7) I wrote on this blog about a newly-introduced bill that would require policy rules for the Fed. Since then a Congressional hearing was held on the bill on July 10, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was cross-examined about it in two more Congressional hearings on July 15 and 16, and the proposal has been widely-covered in the press, social media, blogs, and opeds. And all this occurred just 6 weeks following the Centennial conference we had out here on policy rules for the Fed. What a rollout!

Here is the first main section (Section 2) of the legislation, HR 5018, which has attracted so much coverage. Section 2 is only 10 pages, and much of that is a list of definitions. So you do not have to wait until it is passed to read it.

There is much more that you can uncover with search engines, but overall I think the debate has been informative, including that during the semi-annual hearings with Janet Yellen and subsequent press reporting . As I read the legislation, I have to say that I completely disagree with Janet Yellen that it would be “grave mistake” for Congress to pass it or that it “would essentially undermine central bank independence.” I have to agree with the Members of Congress who characterized this as an alarmist response as reported in the New York Times by Binyamin Applebaum.